Neither prophets nor priests nor psalmists offer quick cures for the suffering: we don't find any of them telling us to take a vacation, use this drug, get a hobby. Nor do they ever engage in publicity cover-ups, the plastic-smile propaganda campaigns that hide trouble behind a billboard of positive thinking. None of that: the suffering is held up and proclaimed—and prayed.

He simply and unmistakably is happy. None of his circumstances contribute to his joy: He wrote from a jail cell, his work was under attack by competitors, and after twenty years or so of hard traveling in the service of Jesus, he was tired and would have welcomed some relief.

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, one of our great modern Isaian prophets who had extensive experience with violence in two world wars, wrote, "The greatest temptation of our time is impatience, in its full original meaning: refusal to wait, undergo, suffer. We seem unwilling to pay the price of living with our fellows in creative and profound relationships."

"Faith" is not a generalized abstraction but a way of life that is expressed in persistent prayer.

I tried not to smile as I gathered the marbles. After counting them out by color and placing them into the holes, I looked at Sapphire and shrugged. 'There aren't enough.' Miz Obee's face tensed, but Sapphire looked at her friend kindly, patted the table, and said, 'Just set up the board as best you can. We'll play with whatever we got.' I thought that was one of the wisest things I'd ever heard anyone say.

Havin' to wait gives us time to learn that He's always standing with us, teaching constant love and patience, until we finally come to the point of prayin', 'Thy will be done,'" Frannie pointed out.

If you lack joy, there is one way you can engage in the process of gaining ever-increasing joy: learn to rejoice. A choice to rejoice cannot depend on circumstances, because it operates from the heart of faith. It lives regardless of what has happened, embracing the realities of His world that can only be accessed by trust in God and His Word. Rejoicing releases joy.

He said that God has closed up the realm of the miraculous to me, not as punishment, but to draw me into the desperation needed to maintain it as a lifestyle once I received my breakthrough.

A happy heart can walk in triumphant indifference through a sea of external trouble; while internal anguish cannot find happiness in the most favorable surroundings.

In our case, my children and I couldn't have made it through the tough times without the grace of God and the wonderful support we received from family and friends.

Don't murmur and rebel in your hour of adversity. Trust in God in every trial.

Laugh as often as possible. You must. Because the world will offer you every reason to weep. So as often as possible, you laugh. That, I think, is part of the Great Love.